“May the Christian king not chance to remember that it was _you_, Albuquerque, who brought her into Spain? The sight of your name may raise suspicion. But no matter,” observing the frown which rises on his face at the ill-timed jest. “By my faith! I would not be in the shoes of the Governor of Talavera, who has favoured the queen’s escape; for favour her he must, else she never would have passed the gates of that invincible fortress. Pedro will invent new tortures to punish him; what say you, Albuquerque?” and more than a touch of irony betrays itself in Don Enrique’s voice as he recalls the sufferings the policy of Albuquerque have entailed on him. “Your kinswoman, Maria, too, will have a new grudge against me, and work some diabolical charm. Methinks I see myself in effigy, burning upon a blazing pile, my life-blood ebbing as, drop by drop, the wax falls into the flame! Ha! ha! If it were only with witches and warlocks I had to do! But God is with the just! and the Holy Father’s blessing is potent.” No answering look of mirth responded to his words; a sad expression was on the fallen minister’s brow as he gravely saluted and quitted the chamber, leaving Enrique and Don Jaime to arrange the preparations for his immediate visit to the cathedral. CHAPTER XIII Queen Blanche in Sanctuary The bright morning which broke so auspiciously at the Alcazar has darkened. The deep shadows of gathering clouds press up from the horizon and veil the city in a soft mist. The many towers and domes of the Cathedral rise up like landmarks on a shadowy sea; the delicate tracery of the gilded spire, capped by a crown of thorns, catching some latent sunbeam hidden in the lining of a cloud, alone stands out apparent in the gloom. Like the Cathedral of Seville, the original Gothic church, in which the Wambas and the Witicas had worshipped according to the Gothic creed from the earliest ages, had become a mosque under the Moors, to be again consecrated by San Fernando, who, smelling blasphemy in the very walls, pulled them down and laid the foundations of the present church, finished two centuries later, in the florid style of that _barocco_ union of the east and west so common in Spain.